The Opposition to the U.S. Military Occupation of Afghanistan is Continuing and Gaining Strength

On January 1, U.S. troops began a brand new mission in Afghanistan called “Operation Resolute Support.”

Even while the new mission proposes to demote many U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan to “non-combat” specialties, they will still be required to train a U.S.-installed police and military force famous for being infiltrated at the highest levels by organized opponents – including especially by members of the Taliban. A dramatic reduction in the quality and quantity of information released about the war is expected to take place even as U.S. troops escalate lethal operations in both the rear and front lines.

According to Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby, “Should members of the Taliban decide to threaten American troops or specifically target and threaten our Afghan partners in a tactical situation, we’re going to reserve the right to take action as needed.”

With the commencement of “Operation Resolute Support” the U.S. military will also lift an earlier ban on U.S. airstrikes and night raids.

The declared aim of keeping the U.S.-installed authority in power will remain the same as during the discarded mission called “Operation Enduring Freedom.”

Preventing the Afghan national liberation movement from re-gaining the political power is Obama’s only argument for continuing the war after the 2014 deadline for withdrawal.

But the demand of the American people for the withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan is not dependent upon the success of the “nation-building” and colonial agenda of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class. It is precisely this aggressive agenda which is opposed by the peoples everywhere. Since day one of the so-called “war on terrorism” the American people have come out in the tens of millions to oppose the plans of our own ruling class to establish military bases in Afghanistan and to prop up a client regime loyal to the interests of U.S. imperialism.

Not only the war in Afghanistan, but also the war in Iraq and every other front of the aggressive war program of the U.S. has been opposed by the American people. So too, the American people have always rejected the chauvinism and “nation-building” agenda of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class which professes the “moral superiority” of “American values” and which enumerates the doctrine first delivered by president Bill Clinton, that wherever the U.S. “has the power” it should use it “within or beyond the borders” of any country.

The fact that the national liberation struggle of the Afghan people has made it impossible for more than 13 years for U.S. imperialism to achieve its “nation-building” objectives is an encouragement to democratic-minded people everywhere – to all who support the right of the Afghan and all other peoples to determine their affairs free from the yoke of colonial oppression; to all who uphold the principle that one country cannot be allowed to wage an aggressive war against another; to all who aspire to create a world of peace and friendship based on the recognition of the sovereign equality of every nation and people.

The failure of the U.S. to achieve its objectives in Afghanistan is the failure of U.S. imperialism to impose its will on a sovereign nation through force of arms. It is the failure of the U.S. to establish conditions for a permanent military presence in Afghanistan – the strategic crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. It is the failure of imperialism to subjugate a people equipped with but a tiny fraction of the weaponry and manpower of the U.S.-NATO aggressors which, under Obama, brought occupation levels to outside 140,000.

Despite the heavy losses suffered by the U.S.-NATO aggressors in Afghanistan, the American people must not underestimate the commitment of the parties of war – the Democrats and Republicans – to the war in Afghanistan. Already, amid the monopoly media fanfare about a “new mission” in Afghanistan, Obama has signed an agreement committing the U.S. military to direct involvement in the country until 2024.

In order to fulfill our duty to defeat the aggressive war program of our own government, the American people must step up our struggle to demand: Not One Cent, Not One Life for Imperialist War! U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now! In order to carry our struggle through to the end we must build up the independent, self-conscious political movement of the workers and people themselves.

Corruption and Lawlessness of the Capitalist Government

Government investments earmarked for public education are being embezzled on a large scale as a result of laws allowing charterization of our country’s public schools. Across the country dozens of charter operators and their cronies have been caught red-handed with their fingers in the public coffers. At this time a small section of the individuals involved are serving time in prison or on probation for embezzling taxpayer’s dollars and defrauding the public. Some few charter operators have lost licenses. Some studies have attempted to quantify losses to state and local budgets. For example, the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education published a study of 15 segments of the charter school market which documented losses during different timeframes totaling $100 million due to “fraud, waste, and abuse.”

Swindling and thieving by public officials is only the tip of the iceberg. Public supervision of charter school budgets is far less attainable than public supervision over traditional schools because charters are typically run by private management. Big business is simply handed the opportunity by the government not only to influence curriculum and impose a tiered school system on our country, but also to contract out and turn vital educational services over to the for-profit private sector. With this kind of access to public funds being handed over to big business it is no wonder that school systems are going bankrupt across the country.

This situation has come about because the hucksters and thieves who rise to prominence in the Democratic and Republican parties are motivated by the same greed and lawlessness as the monopoly capitalists themselves. The Democratic and Republican politicians, if they are not themselves multi-millionaires, are the paid lackeys of the billionaires who are out to make their fortune by committing any crime asked of them by the capitalists.

As part of their anti-social offensive, the capitalists have been “legally” privatizing the $100 billion school infrastructure in a piecemeal way. In this way, by proceeding little by little, the government hopes to fragment the popular struggles against its anti-social offensive so that each time its attacks are resisted only by the relatively small groups of workers immediately affected. The media, of course, labels these as “special interest groups,” trying to marginalize and further fragment the resistance. This piecemeal method is also used for privatizing or slashing investments in other public resources and social programs including Medicaid, public health clinics, income support programs, etc., etc.

Just as in the period of primitive capitalist accumulation, when the capitalist class got started by robbing and plundering the entire continent and the indigenous peoples, so today, monopoly capitalism is reverting to this method by directly relying on the state to plunder our country of its public assets. The capitalist class is literally falling over itself in the grab for public resources. The land speculators want our country’s stock of public housing turned over to them; the billions upon billions invested in the space program are already being put at the disposal of communications monopolies and others. The capitalists are drooling at the prospect of further getting their hands on the monies earmarked for Medicare and Medicaid and public education. The mining capitalists, the oil monopolies and big timber companies are grabbing for more of the national lands and natural wealth of our country.

To make matters worse, capitalist politics has long been a stinking cesspool in which corruption runs rampant and in which the criminals are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. Wheeling and dealing, embezzlement, money-laundering, accepting bribes and kickbacks, doling out government fat contracts, “insider trading,” “influence peddling,” etc., etc., etc., have long been a part of the way of life of the capitalist politicians of the Republican and Democratic parties.

First, last, and always, it is the working people who pay the price. It is the social wealth of the whole country which is stolen for fat contracts and payoffs, even while the capitalist politicians are screaming that they must cut the deficit by slashing social programs.

The U.S. is a capitalist country in which monopoly capital has concentrated vast economic power in the hands of a few and in which the giant monopolies have an entrenched system of political privilege. Domination of the entire social life by a tiny handful of billionaires, and the use of any and every method to ensure their domination and profits – this is what characterizes U.S. society today.

Monopoly capital seeks maximum profit in the shortest period of time and in order to achieve this goal, any method that works is legitimate. In addition to using the privatization and plunder of the public treasury to maximize profits, the monopoly capitalists maximize their profits through the unbridled exploitation of the working people at home, through the plunder and enslavement of whole nations around the world, through the militarization of the economy, etc.

The rampant corruption and lawlessness of the government are signs of the further degeneration of monopoly capitalism and features of the growing fascism in the U.S. The monopoly capitalist class knows no restraint in its pursuit of plunder and profit. Any crime can be and is committed in order to fatten the bottom line.

The Workers Party says that the capitalist system is suppressing everything that makes us human. The very lives of the people give rise to the irresistible demand that these conditions must be changed. The necessity for change arises not only from the exploitation and oppression imposed on the people. Even more importantly, it arises from the deepest aspirations of the people, from their vision of a truly human society.

For more than 200 years the workers and oppressed people of our country have been coming out in struggle after struggle to assert their rights and bring forward their program for society. From the very beginning, the American people have fought to create a society which guarantees equal rights for all and in which the political power arises from and is controlled by the people themselves. From the very beginning, the American people worked to create a land of refuge and peace and throughout our history we have always sympathized with and supported the liberation struggles of people everywhere.

Today, these profound egalitarian, democratic and internationalist traditions of our people are carried forward in the struggles and aspirations of the working class. Socialism and communism already exist in the hearts and minds of the people – in the drive of the workers to emancipate themselves and be the conscious creators of their own society.

It is the working class alone which can defend and advance the interests of democracy. Only through the independent organization of the workers into their own political party and through our unremitting struggles against the capitalist exploiters and their corrupt parties can we create genuine social, political and economic equality and a government truly responsible to the needs of the people.

The theory and program of the Workers Party – of modern communism – includes the demand for the democratic renewal of the political process and political system.

The program of democratic renewal demands the abolition of any and all political privileges and the creation of mechanisms which guarantee the masses of the people the right to participate fully and directly in the political process and in governance.

Political parties must be denied the privilege to nominate and select candidates for public office and this right must be returned to the people. The electorate must also retain the right to recall elected officials at any time.

Further, the chasm between the legislative and executive branches of government must be overcome and the arbitrary power of the executive branch must be broken. The entire operation of government must remain under the direct supervision of the people. Any power not expressly delegated by the people to the government remains with the people themselves.

Constituency committees comprising all citizens must be organized in workplaces, communities and wherever the people are concentrated. Such committees will have the right to nominate and select candidates, to hold elected officials accountable, to set the agenda of government, and to participate directly in governance.

In order to defend their rights and put our country onto the high road of progress and civilization, the working people must create a new political culture and a new political unity amongst themselves. The marginalization and depoliticalization of people must be overcome by giving expression to the independent class aims of the workers.

To help create such a genuine political culture, the Workers Party works to create an atmosphere in which people can get together and discuss their own aims and agenda for society. We work to create new space in which people can get information, sum up their experience, exchange opinions, and zero in on the root problems.

In the course of stimulating the broadest possible political discussion amongst the people, the Party works to provide a concrete program which offers solutions. The Party’s program always starts from the aims and agenda of the people themselves and rejects the limits of the capitalist agenda. Thus we never accept the blackmail that the workers must accept the “lesser evil,” that the only “choice” is whether taxes should be raised or social programs cut, that to oppose the war program of U.S. imperialism is tantamount to supporting some other imperialist power. The Workers Party presents an alternative based on the fundamental interests of the workers, an alternative which goes against the privilege of private property in the means of production and which breaks the monopoly of the capitalists over political affairs. Only such a genuinely revolutionary politics can release the initiative of the workers to come into the political arena under their own banners and with their own independent program.

Keep the Demand for an End to the Blockade of Cuba in the Forefront of the Movement

On December 17, in the White House cabinet room, Obama stated that although the blockade of Cuba had been a failure, there were other ways to achieve the same aim. The U.S. president did not claim that any of these other ways to “liberate” the Cuban people would be any less brutal. Nor did he claim that he would lift the blockade.

Even while sermonizing that without the introduction of U.S. “values,” the Cuban people can’t have “dignity and self-determination,” Obama did cite definite plans to enter into talks with Cuban diplomats over the possibility of opening mutual embassies.

The very fact that Obama would call a new method for achieving the same aim a “normalization” of relations with Cuba is a matchless testament to the utter deceit which has characterized U.S. “diplomacy” throughout the Obama administration. The fact that we have to point out the barest essentials of what Obama said is also a testament to the utter deceit of the capitalist media which absolutely refuses to present even the most basic facts in their concrete context.

Another feature of the marginalization and depoliticalization of people is the so-called “debate” taking place between the Republican and Democratic politicians. The Republicans widely advertise their “criticism” of Obama, calling it a “concession” to Cuba to have admitted that the blockade was a “failure,” while the Democrats and their opportunist “left-wing” claim that Obama’s speech shows that he is a “peace president” after all.

It is one of the favorite methods of the Democrats and Republicans to attempt to thwart the development of the independent political movement of the workers by putting on a show of being at each others throats even while both “sides” of the so-called “debate” remain within the limits set by the capitalists. Although this so-called “debate” varies according to the needs of monopoly capital, it always excludes the workers and prevents our country from finding solutions to the pressing economic, social, and political problems facing the people.

Not just with the U.S. intervention in Latin America and elsewhere, but also with all the fundamental issues facing society, the Democrats and Republicans are facing a crisis of legitimacy. Unable to mobilize people in support of their anti-social agenda, the monopoly capitalists are more and more trying to de-politicize people and degrade their consciousness.

For example, whenever the capitalists want to launch a new initiative – whether it be war against another country or the further dismantling of the public sectors of the economy – the people are bombarded with disinformation designed to mystify the causes of social problems and demonize the enemies of capitalism.

For more than half a century, the U.S. monopoly capitalist class has demonized Cuba while the U.S. government has continually organized terror against the Cuban people with the goal of overthrowing the government and restoring Cuba to the status of a U.S. colony or neo-colony. The U.S. government has organized internal subversion, sabotage and murder against the Cuban people. It has threatened Cuba with nuclear weapons, trained counter-revolutionary armies and political shock forces in the U.S. and kept up a nonstop campaign of ideological, political and diplomatic pressure.

In the face of all of these crimes, the Cuban people have successfully defended their national independence and defeated the aggression of U.S. imperialism. They have continued along the path of their revolution, defending their national sovereignty and determining for themselves their economic and political system.

In the U.S., as throughout the world, the struggle against U.S. intervention in Latin America and the entire aggressive war program of the U.S. government is one of the profound currents of the class struggle. In our country, the workers and people have no choice but to wage this fight.

As in the past, the American people oppose the aggressive, imperialist wars of “our own” government. For example, the American people created massive movements in opposition to the U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam. Over the last decade and more, powerful movements have developed against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So too, Americans from all walks of life have built up ongoing movements of friendship and solidarity with the people of Cuba and other peoples oppressed and attacked by U.S. imperialism.

Today, the American people have already given rise to a new, nationwide anti-war movement. This movement is part of a growing international front against war and imperialism which includes the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples, the anti-war movement and popular struggles in every country as well as various governments and countries which are defending their independence and sovereignty and resisting the pressures and war program of imperialism.

Yet the anti-war movement in the U.S. is still tremendously hindered by the fact that it is, to a large extent, still spontaneous and unorganized and large sections remain under the tutelage of the Democratic Party, which is a party of war and imperialism. Political opportunism works within the anti-war movement to keep it under the domination of the Democrats.

Despite these political pressures, the anti-war movement keeps gaining experience and is straining more and more towards genuine independence, towards becoming a mass, oppositional movement.

The decisive practical question at this time is for the organized, independent forces, despite their small size, to bring anti-imperialist politics to centerstage. We have a principled, clear-cut political program and all the tools necessary to assist the consciousness and independence of the movement and build a genuinely mass independent, proactive anti-war movement.

Only the peoples can stop the war program of imperialism and the decisive thing is for the people to organize themselves, organize themselves and organize themselves.

The Source of Tension on the Korean Peninsula is U.S. Imperialism

As part of the ongoing campaign to heighten tensions on the Korean peninsula and to prevent the peaceful reunification of Korea, the U.S. president is alleging that officials of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea masterminded a Hollywood studio’s computer network security breach. The allegations triggered a wild-eyed frenzy in the monopoly media which grew even more disconnected from reality when, on January 2, Obama called the alleged incident a “human rights violation.”

Obama’s allegations are taking place at a time when U.S. imperialism is strengthening its military alliance with Japan and South Korea as part of its program of “remaining the preeminent military power in the Pacific.” U.S. imperialism relies on its “forward deployment” of troops in Japan and South Korea as the key to projecting its influence and asserting its economic interests throughout the region. Especially today, when the Asian market is undergoing tremendous growth, U.S. monopoly corporations are trying to maximize their trade and investment “opportunities” in the region.

In maintaining its military occupation of the south, U.S. imperialism is trampling underfoot the sovereignty of the Korean people, partitioning the country and preventing its peaceful reunification on the basis of the independent will and efforts of the Korean people. The 30,000 U.S. troop occupation of South Korea serves to militarize the whole of East Asia and to maximize tensions in the region.

Today, public opinion throughout the world is demanding the end of U.S. military occupation of South Korea as the Korean people are pressing forward in their struggle for peaceful reunification. Ending U.S. occupation and interference in Korea is a necessity in order for the Korean people to exercise their sovereign rights to national independence and freedom. Ending U.S. military occupation of Korea is also a vital part of the struggle of the world’s peoples for peace and for an international system based on the sovereignty and equality of all nations.

The People of Cuba Versus the Government of the United States

As Cubans bring in the 57th successful year of the Cuban revolution with lively festivities across Cuba, we again print the following document from a previous issue of The Worker.

In July 1999, grassroots organizations in Cuba brought suit in a Havana Court against the U.S. government. The suit demands human damages be paid for the nearly forty years of aggression by the U.S. against Cuba.

The extensive documentation presented in the Court includes a large number of recently de-classified U.S. documents which expose the organized, terrorist activities of the U.S. government against the Cuban people. Amongst other things, these documents prove that the U.S. government armed thousands of American and Cuban mercenaries and directed them to blow up economic and social projects, engage in banditry and kill Cuban citizens. The suit documents, for example, how U.S.-organized bandit groups killed 549 Cubans between 1959-65.

Below are excerpts from the first part of the court brief presented by Cuban mass organizations. In addition to supporting Cuba’s just demand for human damages, people can learn a great deal about the history of U.S. aggression against Cuba and the terrorist methods employed by U.S. imperialism.

The People of Cuba Vs. The Government of the United States of America for Human Damages

To Be Submitted To the Civil and Administrative Court of Law at the Provincial People’s Court in Havana City.

[The Cuban mass organizations bringing the suit include the Central Trade Union of Cuba (CTC), the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), the Federation of University Students (FEU), the Federation of Middle-level Education Students (FEEM), the “Jose Marti” Children’s Organization, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), and the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution (ACRC).]

The brief submitted by these organizations begins:

“Hereby, by deed we appear and according to rule we say: That, we have come to institute a demand against the Government of the United States of America in Ordinary Proceeding on Compensation for Damages.”

“That, this demand is based on the following: FACTS”

“That, the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959 meant for the people of Cuba – for the first time in its long history of struggles – the conquest of true independence and sovereignty, with a death toll of about 20,000 people who perished in direct and heroic combat against the forces of a military dictatorship trained, equipped and advised by the United States government.”

“The revolutionary victory in Cuba was one of the most humiliating political defeats the United States sustained after it became a great imperialist power. This determined that the historic dispute between the two nations would enter a new and more acute stage of confrontation characterized by the implementation of a brutal policy of hostility and all sorts of aggressions emanating from the United States and aimed at the destruction of the Cuban Revolution, the recapture of the country and the return to the neocolonial domination system that it had imposed on Cuba for over a century and which it definitely lost over 40 years ago.”

“The war unleashed by the United States against the Cuban Revolution, conceived as a state policy, has been historically proven and can be fully confirmed by multiple information released in that country as of late showing a number of political, military, economic, biologic, diplomatic, psychological, propagandist and spying actions; the execution of acts of terrorism and sabotage; the organization and logistic support of armed bandits and clandestine groups of mercenaries; the encouragement of defection and migration and the attempts at the physical elimination of the leaders of the Cuban revolutionary process.”

“All this has been exposed in very significant public statements made by senior officials of the U.S. government as well as in the countless and irrefutable evidences accumulated by the Cuban authorities. Also, numerous declassified secret documents are particularly eloquent and although not all have been released those that already have suffice to fairly prove the grounds for this claim.”

“One of the documents annexed in confirmation of the events described is the already declassified “Program of Covert Actions against the Castro Regime” approved on March 17, 1960 by United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The second, entitled the “Cuban project” and introduced on January 18, 1962 by Brigade General Edward Landsdale to the highest echelons of the Unites States government and the National Security Council Special Group-Augmented contains the list of 32 covert actions to be carried out by the agencies and departments taking part in the so-called “Operation Mongoose.”

“Every hostile and aggressive action conducted by the United States government against Cuba from the very triumph of the Revolution up to the present have caused enormous material and human losses and incalculable suffering to the people of this country as well as hardships resulting from the shortage of medication, food and other indispensable means of life which we deserve and have the right to obtain with our honest labor.”

“Likewise, the political and ideological subversion which resulted in a continual, extensive and unjustified distress endured by all the people has posed constant dangers and caused damages characterized by their pervasive presence and almost immeasurable scope. This has jeopardized an accurate assessment which we are not including this time for the purpose of this demand in order to strictly limit ourselves to the content of the restitution for moral damages as prescribed by the Cuban Civil Code presently in force, although we do not renounce our right to do it in due course.”

“Pursuant to international practice, a State is responsible for the damages caused by its behavior and actions – in legislative, as well as, in administrative and judicial terms – by its agents and officials, and even for the actions of each country’s natural persons, if the corresponding authorities in said State would avoid taking preventive or suppressive measures. Thus, it is its duty to compensate for such damages in compliance with what is universally rated as civil liability.”

“Accordingly, the United States of America, as a State represented by its government, is accountable for the damages caused to Cuban natural persons and legal entities due to the unlawful actions undertaken by its agencies, departments, representatives, officials or the Government itself.”

“That, the recent declassification in the United States of a report produced by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick on October 1961, with a review of the reasons for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion – as it is called in America – has revealed that the covert operations organized in Washington against Cuba began in the summer of 1959, a few weeks after the adoption of the Land Reform Law on May 17, that year.”

“In the month of October, President Eisenhower approved a program proposed by the Department of State and the CIA to undertake covert actions against Cuba, including air and naval pirate attacks and the promotion of, and direct support to, counter-revolutionary groups inside Cuba. According to the document, the operations were to have succeeded in making the overthrow of the revolutionary regime look like the result of its own mistakes.”

“Those days saw the beginning of a campaign of flights over Cuban territory by small aircraft coming from the United States with such missions as the infiltration of agents, weapons and other equipment and the realization of acts of sabotage, bombings and other acts of terrorism.”

“On October 11, 1959, a plane dropped two incendiary bombs on the “Niagara” sugar mill in Pinar del Rio province. On October 19, another two bombs were hurled from the air over the Punta Alegre sugar mill in Camaguey province. On October 21, a twin-engines aircraft machine-gunned the city of Havana, killing several people and injuring dozens while another light aircraft dropped subversive propaganda. On October 22, a passenger train was machine-gunned in Las Villas province. On October 26, two light aircraft attacked both the “Niagara” and “Violeta” sugar mills.”

“From the very month of January 1960, while that year’s sugar harvest was in full swing, the number of flights over sugar-cane plantations multiplied. On January 12 alone, 500,000 arrobas [1 arroba equals 25 pounds] of sugar cane were set on fire from the air in Havana province. On January 30, over 50,000 arrobas were lost at the “Chaparra” sugar mill in the former province of Oriente and, on February 1, more than 100,000 arrobas were set alight in Matanzas province.”

The brief goes on to list several more examples of such terrorist actions on the part of the U.S. government. It then continues:

“The covert war against Cuba had begun, with high intensity, in the year 1959 itself. An infinite number of hostile and aggressive actions, impossible to list in detail, would follow in the coming years.”

“The Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency recognized that “from January 1960, when it had 40 people, the branch expanded to 588 by April 16, 1961, becoming one of the largest branches in the Clandestine Services.” He meant the CIA station in Miami which concentrated on activities against Cuba.”

“That, barely fifteen months after the revolutionary victory, armed banditry was planned and finally unleashed by the United States government, practically all over Cuba. It began in 1960 under the Republican Administration of President Eisenhower and lasted five years until 1965.”

“It’s main thrust would be on the Escambray, region in the former province of Las Villas, which now comprises the provinces of Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spiritus. A so-called front operated in that zone with columns, bands and a commanding post. Weeks before the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion, 40,000 workers and students from the nation’s capital, supported by local forces from the central region and peasants and farm workers from the Escambray and organized in militia battalions, surrounded and rendered helpless that bulwark which was to have co-operated with the invasion forces. Hundreds of bandits were captured and their number reduced to a minimum in those critical days.”

“Those bandits, organized by the CIA, had the support of the United States government which made the greatest efforts and resorted to every possible means to supply them with weaponry, ammunition, explosives, communication equipment and general logistics. To this end, the U.S. government used different routes by air, by sea and even via diplomatic channels through the United States embassy in Havana, until relations were severed at the beginning of 1961.”

“In this respect, the previously mentioned report by the CIA Inspector General explicitly recognized the logistical support provided by that institution to the mercenary bands. One example is the so-called “Operation Silence,” which consisted of the United States Central Intelligence Agency carrying out twelve air operations between September 1960 and March 1961 in order to supply the bandits with arms, ammunition, explosives and other equipment. About such operation the author of the report stated: “In all, about 151,000 pounds of arms, ammunition and equipment were transported by air.”

After listing these operations aimed at supplying the bandits and detailing the activity of the bandit groups themselves, the Cuban brief summarizes:

“Between 1959 and 1965, a total of 299 bands, with 3,995 mercenaries operated throughout the national territory in the service of the U.S. government.”

“The number of casualties in that struggle, regular troops and militiamen combined taking part in the operations against the bandits, as well as people murdered by the bandits whose death it has been possible to document, were as high as 549. Also, a considerable amount of people were injured whose number it has not been possible to accurately determine 34 years later, when this demand was prepared. However, there are still 200 survivors incapacitated as a result of those criminal plans. Not all the victims were among the revolutionary combatants fighting the bandits. Many civilians who had nothing to do with the military activities also died, victims of the crimes committed by the bands imposed from abroad.”

The brief continues detailing the U.S. government’s war against Cuba which continues up to today.